Dahlias are being dug and divided...

We're into our third week of digging and dividing tubers.  Should be done by Friday!!  Yahoo!!

On my hands and knees, clippers in hand, I cut them

all down.  All are labeled for digging.  Because I worry

about getting surprised by a cold winter storm, cut early

before we had a 'hard' frost.  Seems to be okay.

Here's trays of tubers dug, waiting to be divided.

After we divided each variety the tubers go into these gold

buckets containing 2 tablespoons of Daconil, a fungicide,

and soak for 20 minutes.

We use this netting bag and bucket to pour the tubers

and Daconil water solution out, and put the tubers in

trays to dry overnight.

The divided tubers, soaked in Daconil, are left overnight

with a space heater running and an oscillating fan to help

distribute the warmth and air to facilitate drying the tubers.

After almost three weeks of this routine, it does look like there is a "light at the end of the tunnel!"

The LAST Bouquets of Summer!

Sad to say, these two bouquets were the

last bouquets of the Summer!!

The weather has been phenomenal!!!

And the dahlias have been even more phenomenal!  Here's a photo of Art in the garden to give you an idea of just HOW phenomenal:

In the background starting from the right is the dahlia "Crazy Legs" then Woodland's Wild Thing, then Dr. John Kaiser and Orange Bounty.

I'm expecting the weather to be colder than last nights' 35º and if it is, the dahlias will turn black and I will start cutting them down.  Then the real WORK begins!!

On the bright side, here's a few photos of some of the new ones:

Stellyvonne

River's Everyone

Just Ducky

Granny Norman

Cyril Higgo

Creekside Volcano

Prime Minister

Carmen

A small section of the garden.

Oh, and this one's for Bobbie:

Grand Prix

More later....

I've never seen the dahlias perform so beautifully!!

With more than 600 varieties growing in the garden it is a kalaidascope of colors!!  Absolutely breathtaking!!  I took a bunch of photos of the dahlias but the camera setting was not the best.  I will take more photos today and try to do better than these ones:

Busy now with labeling and tagging the dahlias...

POND becomes a reality!!

 New wall behind the bathtub waterfall.

 The wall and stairs... our house is in the background.

 The bathtub and steps created so we can walk into the pond (with chestwaders on) to clean if needed.

The fountain!!  We've added pink and white waterlilies that are now putting out their leaves.  Much yet to do!

At last, our pond sprays waters from a delightful fountain; the waterfall out of the bathtub performs beautifully; Art has been busy with block creating a lovely wall, steps and other creative areas.  It is so pleasant to sit and watch the fish with the watersounds!

Jan's Country Garden OPENS today!!!!

It's been a busy, busy Spring & Summer, but most of the prep work is done and the garden is now open to visitors.  The dahlias are 50% in bloom with more showing each day!  More than 85 NEW varieties and oh My are some of them cute!!  I'll be taking photos and posting in the coming weeks.  Some that are now in bloom...

American Dawn

Crazy Legs

Kumir

Golden Treasure

Pianella

Abracadabra

BUSY BUSY Spring & Summer!!!

We've been so busy with travel, planting, the pond... OH, the MOST exciting thing for me is that the POND is up and running with a nice waterfall (out of a full sized bathtub), a lovely fountain, a turtle spitter and a fish spitter!  We got it going this past Saturday!  So nice to see...  Will post a photo!

SPECIAL PRICE FOR TUBERS!! SALE!!!

Just updated the website and decided it was time to have a special on the tubers.  So many are Sold Out, but there are still so many available...  Here's the link:

http://www.janscountrygarden.com/garden2011_073.htm

Just a few photos of some still available:

Alena Rose

Amy K

Apollo

Playboy, Jr.

Woodland's Wild Thing

Elsie Huston

If you're looking to enlarge your dahlia collection,

or if you're just learning about dahlias and

HOW WONDERFUL THEY ARE IN THE GARDEN,

This is the perfect opportunity to get dahlias at a very

low cost.  Thanks for your time!

Jan

Honored to be picked as ONE of the TOP FIVE Dahlia Gardens

Here's the link to Dave's Garden which hosts the Garden Watchdog for people to want to be sure they are ordering dahlias or other plants, for that matter, from a "reputable" and "honest" dealing company.  I am honored!!

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3619/

Have a Great Dahlia Day!!  Jan

Well, we've gotten a ton of snow...

And it's still snowing!!

Here's some photos:

This one is where Art parks his work truck.  We've shoveled snow off the concrete pad 3 times and each time there was about 6" of snow.

This is from the back deck towards the pond.  It's very pretty.  Our dog, Daisy, and our two kitties do not like the snow.

I've shoveled a snowpath on the deck and down the stairs to the garden 3 times and it's still snowing... not huge flakes but steadily coming down.  The forecast yesterday was for rain starting today and the temperatures to get into the 40ºs.  We'll see...

Website updated for the Yew Year of 2012!!

Oh, the trials and tribulations of doing a website.  It only takes ONE letter added in the wrong place and mess everything up!!  Took me a week to realized I had added a letter to a file name that caused an error message to come up every time!  It's Fixed now!!  Now, back to dahlias!!

Piuku!

This is the name of this bloom which I received from 

Yoann Beaumont, France Dahlia Society President

and hybridizer of this Single varigated dahlia.

Alauna Griselda

Hybridized by Michel Robert, Past President of

the France Dahlia Society.  A lovely shade and

beautiful form!